Comment by Barathkanna
1 day ago
This is the part that doesn’t get enough attention. The real risk isn’t any single vendor, it’s the aggregation layer. Once ALPR, retail cams, traffic cams, ISP data, and vehicle telematics all land in one searchable system, the idea that this will be perfectly RBAC’d and jurisdictionally contained is fantasy. At that point it’s not policing tech, it’s a nationwide surveillance substrate held together by policy promises.
I’ve been in security for a while and I increasingly think understanding what the future looks like under this threat model is about the only security research that really matters fully above the rest (many topics also very important in their own ways).
The state change is just so significant and so under discussed because you learn about it via making an effort in a cybersec career, hitting conferences very years, eventually lucking out with who you met for a beer, and so on.
So how do policy leaders trying to understand this stand a chance at understanding it? How do local PD chiefs understand what they’re bringing in, who I really do believe deserve the benefit of the doubt wrt positive intentions?
There is really no counter-voice to an incredibly capable nationwide surveillance network that’s been around for at least 10-15 years. The EFF doesn’t really count because the EFF complains about these things, SEN Wyden writes a memo, and that seems to be the accepted scope of the work..
Just like man… the bill of rights… it’s a thing! Insane technology.
In other words it’s the telescreen from 1984.